An electronic safety device-for occupants of a vehicle is known, for example, from the journal article 1141 in Ingenieurs de l'Automobile (1982) No. 6, pp. 69-77. For conventional safety devices of this type, the protection means for the occupants, such as an air bag and/or seat belt tensioner or the like is released by activating a "squib," or firing pellet, at the output element of an electronic circuit. The squib, basically in the form of a resistor wire, is activated using a current generated by the car battery itself or by a capacitor provided as a reserve power source. In response to a sensor signal indicating an accident situation provided by an acceleration-sensitive sensor, the entire current necessary to activate the squib is supplied at once to the squib. Normally, no interruption of the ignition process is provided or possible.
Recently the applicant has developed some particularly smart safety devices, wherein the amount of energy required for activating the ignition element or squib is supplied not at one time, but as if in packets in the form of a number of current pulses over time. This principle, known in the industry as AC ignition, allows for a particularly sensitive ignition of the ignition elements, allowing intervention in and influencing the ignition process even after the start of the ignition process. It is even possible to interrupt an ignition process already initiated if, for example, on the basis of the current measured values of the acceleration-sensitive sensor it is established that an acceleration signal initially deemed as particularly critical was not actually caused by a critical accident situation.